For another year, Antilles School’s mathletes took the top spots at the St. Thomas-St. John District Mathcounts competition, but Bertha C. Boschulte Middle School also had a strong showing Thursday, with three students placing in the top 10.
Individually Antilles School’s Mansi Totwani pulled an upset to beat out last year’s champion, teammate Manav Thadani, who came in second this time around.
Third place went to Antilles’ Naidu Harshitha, followed by Dave Gurmani, Robert Hunter and Maggie James, along with BCB’s Demoi Millet in seventh place, V.I. Montessori School & Peter Gruber International Academy’s Skylar Anspacher in eighth place and BCB’s Hezekiah George and Ronj Buendia coming up in the ninth and tenth spots, respectively.
With Antilles also taking top team Thursday – followed by BCB in second – all 10 of the top mathletes now have the chance to make it to the territorial competition in March.
Coaching the St. Thomas-St. John team for another year will be Antilles math teacher Michele Humphries, who usually also takes the territory’s team on to nationals in Washington, D.C.
Speaking after the competition, BCB team coach Astrid Hypolite said the two schools usually work well together preparing for the territorial competition, often meeting for training sessions and practices. 
“They love math, they love working the problems out, and I know they will work well with the other students so it’s just a matter of keeping in touch with the other team and organizing the sessions together,” Hypolite said. “It’s very exciting to have three students in the top 10 today and I know they will continue to do well as they move forward.”
Each year the competition has students working individually and in teams to puzzle out complicated problems in algebra, probability, statistics and geometry. This year, like most others, the students quickly outpaced their parents and friends in the audience and worked hard to best one another, sometimes not even letting the announcer finish reading the question before buzzing in with the answer.
Totwani, who came in first individually, was more excited about the team win and said she was “thrilled” all of “our hard work paid off.”
“We’ve been practicing for so long and put in a lot of time, so I’m very excited that we did so well today,” she said. “Personally, after the practices, I would come home and try to do a little extra, so I am glad that hard work also paid off in the end. We just have to get ready now to begin again and really get ready for next month’s competition.”
Thadani was one of those quick to buzz in the last round, where he faced teammate Totwani in the battle for first place.
“I read a little faster than some people,” Thadani said later, “so while the words are still being read out loud, I’ve already begun solving. That helps a lot.”
“It also helps to know that if I go to nationals this year, it will be the third time and that gives me a shot for a big scholarship,” he said. “That’s what I’m looking at, so I’m going to keep working hard to prepare for territorial meet next month.”
Thadani said he plans to attend Stanford to study cardiology and play football.
